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Apple just nabbed two top Google executives to run a secret hardware team

The company best known for the iPhone has hired two Google executives who were working on building satellites for the search giant, Bloomberg reported on Friday.

John Fenwick and Michael Trela joined Apple in recent weeks from Google, and they'll report to Greg Duffy, who was the founder of Dropcam, which was bought by Alphabet-owned Nest.

Duffy joined Apple earlier this year. The Information reported that he was leading "a special project at Apple that is operating like a startup within the company."

Bloomberg suggests that Apple may be working on satellites that distrubute broadband service, as Facebook and Google have experimented with in the past. According to the report, Apple bought a company called Aether Industries LLC in 2015 that specialized in "near-space technology."

At a recent satellite conference, Apple was rumored to be backing a Boeing plan to launch 1000 satellites for providing broadband internet access.

Of course, Apple is working on lots of stuff, and Duffy's background is in consumer products, such as the web-connected security camera Dropcam. We reached out to Apple.